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Monday, December 24, 2012

Game 15 @ home versus Atlanta Falcons

Sorry.

The Detroit Lions lost their 11th game of the year to the Atlanta Falcons with a score of 18-31. That makes 7 losses in a row. Meanwhile, Matthew Stafford is within striking distance of being the first QB ever to hit the 5,000 yard mark in 2 consecutive years. In fact, all kinds of records are occurring, from NFL.com: Lions receiver Calvin Johnson broke Jerry Rice's NFL single-season yards receiving mark of 1,848. He also became the first player with 100 yards receiving in eight straight games and the first with 10 receptions in four games in a row.

Sorry to report, we're kind of short on record breaking news from the defense or special teams.

I will admit though, it was nice to see the defense call and execute some blitzes. For the most part, the blitzes were producing results, however individual breakdowns still allowed the Falcons high powered offense to score too often. Hopefully a few successful blitzes can be called in every game next year.

The offense was both good and bad. Matthew Stafford was 37 of 56 for 443 yards but with no TDs and 1 INT. The lack of redzone production has haunted the Lions all year and it would appear either the coaching staff has no clue how to fix it or the talent level isn't there (even if the team returned 21 of 22 starters in 2012). Obviously, I'm sorry to report, I'm leaning heavily towards the coaching staff side of the problem.

Special teams saw a new one though... after the defense got a safety the Falcons had to free kick it and Logan caught the ball at the 7 with no one immediately in front of him, then kneeled. Apparently he thought he was in the endzone. I'm sure that'll be the last we'll see of Logan fielding kickoffs, or at most one more week of it, I'm just not yet sure if the special teams coach will be unemployed in a weeks' time.

I've been asked about how likely it is Schwartz will be fired, the answer is I'm sorry to say, not likely at all. He only recently signed a contract extension this past summer and it's reported it was for 3 more years. I'm not as sure about the coordinators though, so we'll see if there's any shakeup coming from those ranks.

The Lions will be drafting between 3rd and 9th with a 5th through 7th being the most likely landing spot, but my forum has been discussing the draft of 2013 for nearly 4 weeks now so most of you probably already know this.

One more week to go, against the Chicago Bears who are vying for a playoff spot (believe it or not) so I'm sorry to say that even though Calvin may put the WR record out of reach for decades to come and even though Stafford may become the first QB to hit 5,000 passing yards in a season in back-to-back years, the odds of them going to 5-11 is very small.